We characterize Openness/Intellect as motivated cognitive flexibility, or cognitive exploration, and develop a neuropsychological model relating it to dopaminergic function and to the functions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Evidence is reviewed for sources of Openness/Intellect shared with Extraversion and sources unique to Openness/Intellect. The hypothesis that the cognitive functions of th...

The current project investigated why people with high levels of Openness/Intellect tend to have higher levels of cognitive functioning than people with lower levels of Openness/Intellect. We hypothesized that the positive relationship between Openness/Intellect and cognition might be attributable to more open people being more likely to engage in cognitively stimulating activities that are bene...

A debated topic in Avicennan psychology is whether for Avicenna abstraction is a metaphor for emanation or to be taken literally. This issue stemsion is a metaphor for emanation or to be taken literally. This issue stems from the deeper philosophical question of whether humans acquire intelligibles externally from an emanation by the Active Intellect, which is a separate substance, or internall...